The Shadow of Evil
by Veruk Ramael
Summary: Umbrella shows up in the wrong place...Gotham City.


*Author's note: Just so we're clear, I don't own any of these people...I just write about them.  
  
Batman: The Shadow of Evil  
  
Ch. 1  
  
Night in Gotham City is never quiet, ever. Shooting, stabbings, muggings, raping...all these things happened on a regular basis all over town. The dark, architecturally drab city never slept, and gave no quarter to its inhabitants. If you can survive in Gotham, say tourists, you can survive anywhere (for some reason people came from everywhere to go to Gotham and look at the various monuments, but never to actually live there) . The city's landscaping even makes the sun look sinister, casting long shadows over everything in the city, making it look even darker than it really was. And of course when night came along, invariably, People went home and locked their doors, those brave enough to live in the inner city. You locked your doors and you didn't come out at night, a lot like an old, superstitious village in the Balkans.  
  
But in Gotham- ah, in Gotham, death really does wait for you around every corner. There might be someone watching you from a sewer grating underneath you. There could be someone who lets fate decide whether you live or die, always some maniac waiting in the alleys, ready to reduce your memory to a scar on his body, merely one among thousands of others. Gotham City was no place to live.  
  
Indeed, it was for this reason that there were only a hundred cops in all of the city, and only ten or twelve of them not "on the take". Sometimes, the cops were no better than the thugs they try and put away, and it always seems that the local jails have a revolving door policy. Especially when it concerned well connected thugs, which most of them were. Even Blackgate prison had trouble keeping its inmates in line and Arkham Asylum-- it was a joke. The few cops that weren't dirty felt alone in their duty, and took the words To Serve And Protect so seriously the others though them insane.  
  
So it was that two of Gotham's Finest- Detective Bullock and Lieutenant Kitch- found themselves on Gotham's docks, where some workers reported seeing an emergency life raft in the murky waters, with people frantically waving and calling out. They were too far out for the workers to snag them, and the Coast Guard was notified. However, not half an hour later the Coast Guard rang up the local police, saying it was no longer their matter. Murder was not part of their jurisdiction. The rain had started in early, and Bullock didn't even bring his umbrella. He was fat and dirty, but to his credit he had lost some of his girth and weight over the last two years. However, he was still addicted to donuts and cigars (which was a bit cliché for poor Harv, but it was nonetheless true), and that kept him large. Lieutenant Kitch was a tall blond man, muscular and strong, with piercing blue eyes. He brought his umbrella, and didn't bother to share it.  
  
They stood on the dock, the dingy tied to a rotting post. Bullock shook his head, and Kitch carefully scanned the small craft for any bit of helpful information. Thank goodness the coroner was on his way, though Kitch, the smell's pretty damned ugly.   
  
"Well, i's like that guy inna movie said," Harvey suddenly said, "'What, are we importin' victims?'"  
  
"I didn't know you were a Chris Rock fan, Harv," said Kitch, purposefully enunciating his words over the din of the heavy rain.  
  
"I'm not. I only watch it for that Gibson fellow."  
  
There were looking down at three bodies, all dressed similarly: They wore black pants and shoes, and a gray shirt. The lab coats were short, but full of pockets which had nothing in them. They were all middle-aged men by Harvey's guess, and only one wore glasses. There was some sort of embroidered symbol on the left breast pocket, red-and-white and outlined in black, and looked like an umbrella as viewed from the top.  
  
"Funny lookin' symbol," Harvey spoke again, "Whaddaya make 'a that?"  
  
Carefully, Kitch knelt down and touched the pockets, and played his small pocket flashlight over it with is other hand. The dying yellow lights from the docks weren't enough to see in the gloom, and the weather was becoming cold and miserable.  
  
"It's the symbol for the Umbrella Corporation, the big pharmaceutical company. They're advertising their Regenerate Skin Cream- that's where I've seen the symbol on; their bottles of pills and such. Supposed to take years off your skin, you know."  
  
"Think the company had 'em whacked?"  
  
"They look like scientists, Harv. Umbrella's labs are located in Washington State. It would be an awfully long way to go just to get rid of three people...who smell like they've been dead for days!"  
  
The smell really was becoming overpowering, and Kitch had to stand up again and look away. Harvey looked, and the bodies looked like they could've been dead a week and a half.  
  
"That ain't right," the fat detective said, the donuts he had eaten just ten minutes earlier disagreeing with the stench, "They were reported alive not an hour ago!"  
  
Maybe, Kitch thought,Maybe.. But the lieutenant shook his head, unable to come up with an answer.  
  
The coroner finally arrived, a small man driving and old station wagon the department had fixed up to carry the bodies in. As much money that was invested into Gotham City, the Police Department was as a pauper.   
  
"What do you have here, guys?" the small, aging man asked. He had come prepared also, in a bright yellow raincoat and a hat that hid his rough features in the waning light above. Harvey Bullock felt like he was being taunted by a Higher Power, and another movie clip came to his mind, this time from Ninja Turtles, at least he thought so.  
  
'I'm bein' punished, aren't I?!'  
  
This he said aloud when he got into the car, and Kitch started the undercover car.  
  
"Oh come on, Harv. Don't tell me you're getting too old for this shit."  
  
"I don' wanna hear it from you, neither!" Bullock said, pointing a finger at the blond man.   
  
  
  
'Always working, always working, always keeping busy...'  
  
It was times like these that Alvin McCann let his mind wander somewhat, these late nights in the morgue. Not that he minded, of course. He wasn't a very social person, and so what if he was? It's not like he could go home to his wife and say, "Why, yes honey, I did have an interesting day at work, we got these putrifying bodies in from Gotham Harbor..."  
  
Ah, but he wasn't married. Never intended to marry, anyway. Sure, he'd known what being with a woman was like, and that was part of the reason he wasn't married. "Women were nice", he'd always say, "But when you get down to it, I like to keep all my money in the bank and in my pocket." Male coworkers sometimes laughed, and female coworkers despised him, somewhat.  
  
Having put two of the bodies in the walk in freezer, he wheeled the third- the only one that had worn glasses- into the autopsy area, lit by a single bright bulb. It gave the appearance of a concrete stage, with Alvin ready to deliver a soliloquy at any given moment. And yes, sometimes he found himself singing or acting out something he'd seen on television. No sir, the fun never stopped in the Gotham City Morgue.   
  
Alvin began to make his incisions, pulling the skin back and revealing gory bone. He fumbled for his tape recorder, and began to speak:  
  
"Both left and right lungs severely atrophied, the liver looks shriveled as well. The heart is somewhat liquefied, and the skin all over the body is rotting at a considerable rate. Veins visible in the forearms and..."  
  
He put on his bifocals to look carefully at the feet and ankles.  
  
"Yes, the toes and the ankle also show signs of darkened veins. Rigor Mortis probably set in forty-five minutes ago--Huh?"  
  
Hearing the gurgling noise, Alvin took another look in the mouth. Light yellow foam was forming on the edges of the mouth and on the tongue.  
  
"Unusual froth inside of the mouth, it almost seems to be originating from the tongue. I--"  
  
He was interrupted by a banging on the door, which sounded very desperate. The coroner jumped and dropped his tape recorder. Thankfully, it was still on record.  
  
'Ah, to hell with it for now,' he thought  
  
Miffed, he walked quickly towards the big metal door to the lower floors of the police station and unbolted the door.   
  
Nobody.  
  
He poked his head out the door, and looked left and right. Silently he bolted the door back, and turned back to the corpse. He heard the banging again. It was louder, slower, almost like a dying heartbeat.  
  
Thump.thump.thump.  
  
"The hell?" he asked no one in particular, and walked towards his desk. The sound was of course louder than a mouse inside the old oak desk (which, yes, had happened before), but he tried to deny himself what was really going on, that the thumping noise was really coming from the inside the walk in freezer.   
  
Alvin gulped, frozen in place by a sudden chill. He suddenly remembered watching an old vampire show, where that ugly man had come up behind the coroner and had said, "Open the veins of your wrists with the scalpel." He was suddenly afraid, twenty years on the job had just flown out the window. No matter, he told himself, he was still a professional. He went over towards the far side of his desk and grabbed his old baseball bat, his mind drifting suddenly.  
  
Like a tidal wave he was awash in the memories of ten months ago, the anniversary of his twentieth year on the job, the say that officer Patrick Olivar had reported a dead prostitute on 38th street. He went out in the station wagon and brought her back, a pale, gaunt woman with stitches up the underside of her wrists.  
  
"Sure is a pity," he had said aloud, and brought his scalpel down to her chest to make the incisions. Then he noticed it! Without her clothes in the cold morgue--!  
  
Suddenly the girl's eyes popped open, spreading her arms out wide on the slab. Alvin screamed so loud and had flung the scalpel all the way to the other end of the morgue itself, with it skittering across the floor. The girl jumped off the table and began gyrating, singing loudly, "If ya want my booody, and you think I'm seeeexy--"  
  
Laughing from behind the walk in freezer, Olivar and several other officers stepped out into the bright light, nearly in hysterics. The tall one, Aaron Flass his name had been, had to hunch over the oaken desk, he was laughing and crying so hard that he wasn't making any noise. Behind the filing cabinet facing the autopsy table, Arno was pointing at Alvin, almost to tears himself.  
  
"You should of seen his face--!" was all the Scandinavian could get out before he lapsed into a rough fit of laughter.  
  
"Happy twenty, man!" Olivar had said, calming down. The woman kissed Alvin on his cheek, and began to dance in front of him, naked as she was. "The girl's free of charge, old man."  
  
"What do you mean--?" Alvin had stammered.  
  
"Oh, you know those zany 38th street girls!"  
  
The officers had left the two of them alone in the morgue.   
  
A whore. How typical of dirty cops, Alvin had thought. But dirty though they were, they could be a fun bunch...   
  
A bit of relief came over the lone coroner as he grinned his lopsided grin, and felt somewhat safe despite being out of the comfort of his one bright light. He tried to open the door, and then remember he'd locked it. Fumbling for the keys in his pockets, he never saw it coming.  
  
Having shuffled over towards him, the corpse on the table grabbed Alvin, some of his shriveled organs hitting the concrete floor with the sort of slap! noise that kid's feet make when they're running around the edges of a wet pool. He didn't even have time to scream, even as the corpse took a chunk of meat from his throat.  
  
The pounding on the freezer door continued.  
  
Stepping out of the elevator, Bullock finished the last glazed donut in the box, and threw the whole thing away- devoid of donuts, of course. He hated going to the basement level, absolutely hated it. There was always a smell, even in the evidence room that was just off to his right, directly across from a soda machine that never had anything in it but cheap limeade and that Fanta crap nobody asked for but still continued to get. Sighing, Harvey trudged onward, almost as a man marching to his doom on Death Row. He really didn't want to be there.  
  
However, Commissioner Gordon wanted Harvey to follow up on the case before his shift ended, and maybe do a bit of paperwork on it. Since Lieutenant Kitch had gone home for the night and Montoya was working a day shift, the duty fell to him.   
  
It was almost funny, though, that Harvey still thought of Renee Montoya as his partner, and not Kitch. Sure, he liked her, but who wouldn't? She was slender and muscular, severe in demeanor and in law enforcement, almost everything Harvey wasn't. It wasn't like Harvey was a complete moron, though- he didn't get his detective badge out of a Cracker Jack box, after all. Ole Harvey was a really smart guy, one of the best detectives in Gotham City. It was only because he was portly, rude and not just a bit obnoxious that no one thought of Harvey as anything more that a fat cop who hung around the office all day. Hell, if the Commissioner had to choose three cops to watch his back, they would be Bullock, Kitch, and Montoya.   
  
Well, and Merkel, but he was up for retirement later in the year.   
  
So it was that the detective banged on the door of the Morgue, and rolled his eyes when he didn't get an answer.  
  
"Hey McCann! I gotta--!"  
  
He stopped talking when the door opened ever so slightly, and he heard the crunching noise. The tingling hairs on the back of his neck told him something was very wrong, and long ago he learned never to shut out that feeling. He reached for the nine millimeter in his holster, and unlocked the safety.  
  
"Yo Alvin!" he called again. With his left foot, he swung the door open, and quickly checked both immediate corners, his gun pointing the way, arms straight out. Where his head looked, so did the gun. Disappointed, there was nothing in the light.He heard the crunching noise again, and now that he was inside the morgue, he also heard a thumping noise coming from inside the freezer. Carefully he shuffled his way towards the freezer. Using the light behind him to focus his eyes. Then, he froze.  
  
He'd been on the force thirteen years, the last six of which had been spent as Detective. He'd seen people who had become bloody smears on the pavement, suicides who didn't get it quite right and were still twitching, their arms and legs flailing at nothing for hours and hours until they died. He even shot a kid in the thigh who was trying to steal a car, back during No Man's Land. But even still, he never saw a naked man kneeling over another person and eating them. The naked man looked up at Harvey, his face a rotten mass of muscle and bone, his bloody teeth holding the coroner's trachea like a pit bull with lockjaw. When the corpse stood up, Harvey saw the autopsy incisions, the internal organs hanging out of the body. The back of his left hand went to his mouth, and Harvey found himself uttering, "Sister Mary Francis--!"  
  
The cadaver lurched towards him, and Bullock pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the thing in the heart, but it kept coming at him, clawing at the air. He shouted on impulse, and emptied the clip into the creature, even after the brain was hit. It moaned, and continued forward, clawed bony hands scraping the air in front of it, teeth gnashing and frothing in its mouth. Panicked but not out of control, Harvey tossed his gun to the floor and kicked the thing, which staggered to the floor. Finding the coroner's bat nearby, Harvey knocked the naked corpse down again when it tried to get back up, and proceeded to smash its face in until the blood seemingly drained from its body. Huffing and puffing, Harvey threw the bat down and picked up his gun, checking it carefully while keeping one eye on the bleeding corpse. Satisfied his gun would fire again and that the thing was still dead, he carefully went over to the phone and dialed the number for Gordon's secretary. She asked if it was important.  
  
"Yeah, tell the Commish he's gonna need a new coroner."  
  
I'll be damned, Commissioner James Gordon thought as he lit the cigar, and stared at the giant spotlight mounted to the roof of the police station. The Bat Signal had been on for nearly three minutes, not nearly enough time for Batman to ever show, but Gordon himself was already starting to get nervous. Oh sure, he wasn't nearly as pale and shaken as Harvey Bullock leaning against the stairwell wall, but it sure was bothering him all right. It was one of the more shocking things to happen in a long, long time- and in a city full of psychos like the Joker (Joker's been on the loose for six months, Gordon reminded himself, What the hell is he up to?), Scarecrow, and Two-Face, that's saying a great deal.   
  
It wasn't long after he had made Captain that he saw the crazier side of Gotham. People that were dead whose faces had been parched white and were grinning, eyes gleaming, laughing at some final, morbid joke. Families whose throats had been cut and then arranged in a way that they'd seem to be alive. The last one nobody noticed until the smell had begun to invade other rooms of the apartment complex! There were always bank robbers and liars and thieves and murderers, but it was the real psychos you had to pay attention to. People like Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. People like that, you shoot first and ask questions later or you were dead. In the case of lunatics like the Joker, you were just plain dead if you were close enough.   
  
But this incident, this corpse getting off the autopsy table and eating- eating!- the coroner's face and throat put a chill in the tough commissioner that had nothing to with the cold night air. And Bullock, he was a tough cop too-one of the toughest to be in Gotham in a long time, and he was as white as a sheet, sitting there and smoking his cigar.   
  
Gordon had answered Harvey's call, and had gone down into the morgue, and found both the naked man and the dead coroner, along with Harvey leaning on the oak desk. It was almost baffling, the way it looked, and the commissioner started to say something, but Harvey put his index finger to his lips and whispered, "Don't ya hear that, Commish?"  
  
"Hear what?!"  
  
But then he did hear it: The pounding on the inside of the freezer door. It was slight and not as noisy as it had been, but it was there. Backup was called for, and the other bodies shot full of holes. All four of them (including the coroner himself) were strapped to some hospital gurneys left over from a family suicide, and used as many small bungee cords as they could to hold the bodies down, just in case the damn things decided to get up again. That had been, of course, Harvey's own idea.  
  
But, here now he had a dead coroner, one of the best in Gordon's own opinion. He had already made the calls to both Metropolis and New York, and New York had one to spare, a younger man who also doubled as a mortician and has his license to operate the crematorium. Creepy.   
  
They didn't hear his footsteps when he showed up, and he was silently pleased with himself. He tapped Commissioner Gordon on the shoulder, and if the old man jumped or was surprised, he didn't show it. Gordon didn't turn around; he didn't have to. He knew that behind him in the dark shadows was a man. A Batman.  
  
"It's really bad this time," he said, his voice even and flat. Batman knew Gordon was enraged.  
  
Batman said nothing, waiting for the old man to continue. That's how it usually went, anyway.  
  
"You're probably not going to believe me on this one. I know I wouldn't," Gordon continued on, "We've had a murder in the morgue. Alvin McCann. I'm sure you've heard of him."  
  
"Yes," was all Batman said.  
  
"He was found dead all right. Harvey! What did you see?"  
  
Bullock looked up and crushed his cigarette, and walked within a few feet of his boss to where he was looking over his shoulder. There was no one there, of course.  
  
"There were three of 'em," the detective called perhaps too loudly, "We brought 'em up from Gotham Harbor and they were all dead. Boat we put inna shipyard next to the holding cells we got there. Funny thing, though. Dockworkers heard 'em hollerin' an' carryin' on. We only got there a half hour later, but they were dead. Like they'd been dead for a week or somethin'."  
  
There was silence. Harvey went on.  
  
"I checked the morgue, and Alvin was being eaten on by one of the zombies" I killed one of 'em, the others were locked in the freezer. Don't know where they came from, though- Kitch said something about the patches on their shirts bein' from a company called Umbrella. You heard of it?"  
  
More silence.  
  
"Yeah well," Harvey mumbled something, and then walked down back into the stairwell. The Commissioner turned the giant spotlight off and lit up another cigar.  
  
"Anything?" the old man said, a small puff of smoke issuing from his lips, curling around his large but well kept moustache.  
  
"Corpses?" Batman rough and low speech was quite audible.  
  
"Dead as dead can get, Batman."  
  
"I believe you."  
  
"I don't know if you want them, but the lab guys took some pictures of the clothes and the bodies. Just in case."  
  
Batman came out from behind the outcropping, between the edge of the police station and the room leading back down the stairs. He took the files.   
  
"Might be something of use," he replied. With that, Batman walked away, towards the edge of the building, and jumped into the alley. With his far sight bad, Gordon thought he saw Batman flying away. He shook his head, and opened the door to the stairwell.  
  
"You're getting old," he said to himself, but not really believing it.  
  
  
  
Thirty minutes later, the Batmobile pulled into the Cave (or Batcave as Robin and sometimes Alfred would call it), and its top slid off. Batman strode over to his computer panel and lay the manilla folder in the chair. He pulled back the cowl, revealing the smooth and handsome features of Bruce Wayne, with his cobalt eyes and his black hair.  
  
"Alfred, can you bring me down some peroxide and one of those suit fixing kits?"  
  
There was a pause on the speakerphone.  
  
"Am I to assume you've had a bit of Cat Scratch Fever?"  
  
Oh he's good, Batman thought.  
  
"Something like that, Alfred."  
  
"Very good sir."  
  
It would be a moment before the pain subsided, but never did the pain bother him. Just something to file away in the back of his mind. He picked up the folder and sat down in the comfortable leather chair, his computer mainframe looming ominously over him.  
  
It had been this way too when the Millar's on Park Avenue....  
  
There had been several pictures taken of the family, they were sitting around the living room; Mother and Father sitting on the loveseat while the kids sat cross legged in front of them, none of them staring into the camera. They looked melancholy as they sat there in the picture, a frame of an unhappy family, faces frowning, eyes downcast.  
  
They had been, in fact, dead.  
  
It was so neatly arranged that it took Batman about four seconds to catch it: The blood on their shirts, the stiffness of the limbs even visible in the photograph, the sunken eyes. These people are dead, Batman's subconscious had said. The picture was grotesque and mortifying, but the injustice was that the untrained eye would never even pick it up. The relatives in Cedar Rapids didn't. They thought it was a bad picture taken of the family, and even had it framed. June Millar didn't see her brothers very often, and so were glad to have anything new from the family. Imagine their horror when they found out their sister and her family had been dead in that picture.  
  
Batman stared at the first picture, which showed the coroner's eyes in simple, stark and abject terror. There was nothing left of his throat or the rest of his face.  
  
Next picture: A corpse in a pool of blood on the floor, it's face bloody, it's brains--  
  
Batman's quickly flipped to the first picture. There was brain matter on the wall of the freezer and on the concrete in the background. In the second picture, the body was lying on the ground, its head turned to the gaping holes in the back of its skull. Already, Batman had begun to piece it together: Harvey walked in and shot the corpse, probably unloaded all the bullets into it, and  
  
And then it walked five and a half feet towards Bullock?  
  
Batman knew the floor plans of the Police Station as well as he knew the floor plans for Wayne Manor far above the cave. The corpse had to be walking, possibly trying to still kill Harvey...  
  
Alfred came down the steps with a silver tray full of medical supplies, not the least of which was a giant bottle of peroxide which was halfway gone. He caught site of Batman with his cowl off, Bruce's eyes fixed on the pictures he flipped back and forth between.  
  
"Still on the job, Master Bruce?"  
  
"This doesn't make sense--"  
  
"I've been trying to tell you that for years, sir."  
  
Batman almost grinned in spite of himself.  
  
"Something happened at the police station, Alfred. Bullock said a corpse ate Alvin McCann's throat and tried to kill him."  
  
"You don't think they're trying to pull a fast one on you, sir?"  
  
"No. Bullock alone maybe, but Jim was collaborating his story. Said they pulled two more from the freezer, which they walked out of...Look at this...someone had the presence of mind to snap this one when they opened the door."  
  
Alfred gulped as he looked, and saw two clearly dead and somewhat decayed people stepping out of the freezer in the morgue.  
  
"Dreadful business," was all he said, and then gestured for Bruce to remove his dark gray tunic and cape, which he did. Bare to the waist, Alfred began applying the creams and peroxide when something caught the Dark Knight's eye.  
  
"Alfred, what brand of antiseptic is that?"  
  
"It's called Fastheal, Master Bruce, works like a charm I'd say."  
  
Batman took the bottle after Alfred had finished with it. He was amused to note that the umbrella decal on the torn shirts in the pictures was the same as that on the bottle.  
  
"The Umbrella Corporation...Alfred, has Robin been here tonight?"  
  
"Yes sir, I made sure he took his communicator, just in case you needed him. Shall you give him a call, Master Bruce?"  
  
Batman shook his head.  
  
"No, I'll leave some instructions on the computer for when he gets back."  
  
He put his cape and cowl with the assortment of others in the dressing room, as well as the rest of his suit. The tunic would have to be sewn back together, of course. Along the back it was practically ribbons, and was grateful the cuts hadn't been too deep. But that's the way it went with Catwoman sometimes-you just never knew.  
  
Quickly, Batman made his way towards a chamber which housed his various suits and utility belts. He went three rows back and turned left, which brought him to the Kevlar section. Light, medium, heavy- all different types as the situation needed. He decided on the heavy black suit with a black bat raised and spread across the chest. The boots he choose were silent, but weren't good for anything more than sneaking around in, possessing a non-stick surface on the bottom. There wasn't any room in the thick gloves for lock picks or any of the normal things he'd keep in either those or the heavy duty cape and cowl that he wore, which was flame resistant. Luckily, the heavy utility belt that went with it had every small device he could possibly need, including a breathing apparatus which connected to the edges of his mouth area by way of hidden tabs. He'd need the Kevlar cowl anyway; it had a receiver inside that he'd need for Robin to contact him if he wasn't in the Batmobile.  
  
Quickly he went back to the changing room just inside the chamber and put on the full suit. Heavy, yes, but not nearly enough to slow him down. Major acrobatics were out of the question, but he didn't plan on using his line and grappling hook on this mission, either. For that, he snatched up a heavy duty version which would fit on his belt and do the job automatically. He crossed the main length of the cave, heading towards the car.  
  
"Ah, very handsome, Master Bruce." Alfred said as the Batmobile's top slid open, allowing entrance. Moments later the long, sleek car sped away. The current design made no outside noise, which still astonished Alfred. If it wasn't for the alarm in the house, he'd never know when Bruce was back home.  
  
  
  
The car silently made it's way down the back roads of Gotham City, and Batman switched on the night vision display so he wouldn't have to use the headlights. Passing motorists would never know he was there until it was too late, and even then they'd never know it was Batman. His dashboard gave him all the necessary information, and had a multitude of buttons which weren't labeled, and pushed one that made the console next to the gear-shift split open, revealing a small view screen as well as a numbered keypad.  
  
Quickly he punched in a code, and a severely angled feminine face popped up on the view screen.  
  
"Batman?" the distorted voice asked.  
  
"Umbrella Corporation," was all he replied with.  
  
"Five minutes."  
  
"Out."  
  
Batman pushed the button again, having started the intelligence gathering operation he'd need. Softly he applied the brakes, and the Batmobile came to a halt a quarter of a mile outside of Police Dry Dock. He flipped the buckle of his belt and revealed a panel full of numbers, and pushed a set of five. After he exited the Batmobile, a three dimensional image of a dumpster full of smelly garbage was sitting there, complete with smell.  
  
Batman slipped around the back area, where the boats were being stored. Easily he picked the lock with a simple tool from his utility belt, and went in. The night lenses in his cowl slid down, giving him a greenish daylight view of the place. It was around here somewhere...  
  
Finally Batman found the small raft quite easily, and inspected the outer hull. Nothing breached it from below and there were no signs of wear and tear. Inside the oars were broken and worn, probably used when the engine ran out of gas.   
  
Yes, a gasoline engine on the back. If it was an emergency craft it wasn't designed to go very far.  
  
He noticed a bit of broken glass near the front of the boat, and saw what looked like an oil stain on the boat. And further down, a bullet hole in the small metal boat that had passed through the front of the boat.  
  
All right, so someone had a glass container which was shattered by a passing bullet, probably fired from thirty to fifty feet away. There might have been a chase, in which case the pursuers might be on their way. More than likely the chase didn't last too long, or the pursuers gave up and could track the boat--  
  
With a small pick, Batman dislodged some of the sealed wood from the bottom of the inside of the boat, place in a specially designed bag, and put it back in a small pocket of his utility belt. After some probing of the boat, Batman found was he was looking for- a small homing device, which was still working.  
  
"Batman?"  
  
It was the distorted voice in his cowl receiver.  
  
"Go ahead, Oracle."  
  
"Umbrella Corporation has one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand people officially employed, and grossed five-hundred-and-seventy billion dollars last year on their pharmaceutical products, everything from weight loss pills to healing salves--"  
  
And antiseptic, Batman amended to himself.  
  
"--Something of interest came in their budgeting report, though. They're spending fifty million dollars a year on something that doesn't show up on any other major report."  
  
"A private army," Batman said, eyeing the three figures that came out of the water like Navy SEALS. They held automatic rifles, their equipment sophisticate enough to have night vision goggles and various other survival gadgets in their own utility belts. Their suits were black camouflage, and a little badge was on the left of their chests, and larger on their backs: It was Umbrella's own symbol.  
  
"That's what I'm betting on," Oracle replied.  
  
"Hold that though, Oracle," Batman whispered, as he always did when there was trouble. As always, his receiver went off.  
  
Have to find something to hide behind--  
  
There were several larger boats in the Dry Dock, one of them clearly procured in a drug bust, marked by panels that had been broken open and plenty of bullet holes. Batman hid inside the living area, which gave him a decent view of the three soldiers as they entered the dry dock. Silently, Batman flipped open his buckle, and punched in a set of three numbers. In the Batmobile, the call line was open, and across the city, Commissioner Gordon's phone would ring and a predetermined voice pattern of the Batman would say,   
  
"Dry Docks. Send units."  
  
After that, the connection would be immediately broken, and of course Gordon would send a couple of patrol cars.  
  
Quickly and silently Batman made his way out of the boat.  
  
I'll only have a few seconds, he thought to himself, as he took out a flash grenade. He took careful aim, and then tossed it. Looking away, the Dark Knight heard the grenade bounce off the lead man's chest and detonate, no doubt burning their eyes covered by the night vision goggles. In one-and-a-half seconds, Batman was upon them. A half second later a heavy downward punch blacked one of the soldiers out, and in another half second the soldier bringing up the rear felt his right kneecap shatter and dropped like a rock, screaming involuntarily. One full second later, the smaller soldier in the middle felt a kick in her stomach that nearly broke her spine and almost splattered the internal organs in between. They didn't, of course- the kick was carefully timed and planned. Instead, the soldier was thrown backwards, landing four feet away. The first two he hit, he tied together with a light but durable cable Batman kept in one of the back pockets of his utility belt, and threw a hood on them. Their utility belts he sliced off and placed on the ground, and then he tied the remaining soldier up and took off the helmet and night vision goggles.  
  
A woman was underneath it all, and she was unconscious. Batman looked back at the other two: still unconscious, and probably wouldn't talk anyway. But this one...  
  
He snatched up the woman and took off, along with their utility belts. Batman was confident that, in a few minutes, the police would arrive and find the two soldiers tied up. And even if they got away, Batman would deliver this woman to them- after he had a few words with her himself.  
  
It was, in fact, one of his favorite "Interrogation" spots in the city, scouted from his earlier days as Batman. It was an eagle's head jutting from the side of the First National Bank, which was thirty stories tall. The lights from the city cast their shadow over everything up there, leaving everything in near total darkness.  
  
As Batman watched from beside the building, the woman woke up, and found herself laying face up on the eagle's head, wide enough only for a person to walk one foot in front of the other. Her eyes grew wide, but eventually she managed to stand up- she couldn't get her hands free, tied as they were in front of her. She cursed herself, finding her utility belt and the knife she hid in the back pocket gone. Suddenly she felt an impact on the center of her chest, and she froze, nearly screaming with fright. The Umbrella symbol clattered at her feet. Partially hidden in the shadows, it was only Batman's blank eye pieces she saw, and a gloved finger pointed down at it. Slowly the figure emerged; tall, with pointed ears. Her mind shaped him into a demon, and she almost said a prayer on reflex.  
  
"Tell me," Batman said, pointing at the symbol he ripped off one of the other soldiers. Sure, he knew the answer to the question, but it was always best to start simple.  
  
He allowed her to collect some measure of sentience.  
  
"I--I...Go to hell!" she suddenly spat. Batman took four steps towards her, and she backed away. There was no more room. Soundlessly, Batman picked up the symbol and held it up to her face.  
  
"Tell me," he whispered, his voice low and growling.  
  
Instead, she kicked out at him. Batman grabbed her leg and delivered a forceful palm strike to the center of her chest. She found herself pushed off the outcropping, eyes wide with terror. She began to scream as she fell, which was all of ten feet. The line Batman had tied to the open mouth of the eagle and to the woman's wrist snapped tight, and the Dark Knight was not worried about her wrists and shoulders, which were probably dislocated. Still terrified, she looked at him, still terrified.  
  
"Don't want to talk? That knot in the rope won't last another twenty minutes." With that, he simply walked off. In truth, he walked out of her line of vision, and crouched low. He'd hear her scream.  
  
"You can't leave me out here!" she screamed, "Damn you!"  
  
She looked down at the street far below, and up above, the knot was indeed slipping. Despite being a member of a paramilitary force, she began to cry.  
  
"Umbrella, dammit, I work for Umbrella!"  
  
Batman appeared on the eagle's head, as he did when he knew the subject was telling the truth. The woman's legs worked back and forth, but was far enough away from the building she'd never find a foothold. Looking down, she screamed again. Unseen by her, Batman readied his heavy grappling line.  
  
"Help me up!" she screamed, less desperately this time.  
  
"Talk. What were you doing at the Police Dry Docks?"  
  
"Get me up, dammit!"  
  
"Still don't want to talk?" Batman asked, and whirled around, pausing only a half second before he would begin to walk away. That usually did the trick.  
  
"No! Nooooo!" she screamed, seeing the knot untie only slightly, and tried to center her mind. "There's an island base in the Atlantic!"  
  
"I want to know about the Dry Dock," Batman said again, kneeling down. The woman's fingers splayed open, as if to grab his outstretched hand. Instead, her eyes fell upon the metal object in his hand.  
  
A pocket knife.  
  
Without any more words, he slowly began to cut at the line.  
  
"Oh Jesus Jesus Jesuuuus!!" she yelled, paralyzed with fear, watching each individual strand separate from the thick rope.  
  
"What were you doing in the Dry Dock?" Batman asked directly, "What's your connection to the bodies found in that boat?" He was still severing the rope. That she had not passed out from fright was almost impressive. It wouldn't really matter in the end, but almost impressive. He paused, still holding the knife to the rope. It wouldn't last another five minutes, but if this didn't do the trick, his next trick would.  
  
The woman paused to catch her breath and focus on the words.  
  
"We were supposed to capture them!"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"They--they stole a vial! A virus! Said they'd tell the world!"  
  
A virus? Batman thought about the bit of wood in one of the pouches. Now he had to analyze it.  
  
"What sort of virus?"  
  
"I can't tell you that! They'll kill me!"  
  
"Suit yourself."  
  
With ease, Batman sliced through the line. The woman began to scream all the way down. With one hand on the heavy zipline, Batman leapt off the building, gaining distance on her. He snatched the woman, and fired the line from a pressurized air gun. The hook wound around the eagle's head, and with a jerk they both stopped falling.   
  
He had treated a local gangster like this once. He was highly connected, and Batman wanted to know the whole score. After Batman caught him, the thug started spewing out names, addresses, even social security numbers.  
  
The woman began to quickly ramble on about how they were supposed to collect the boat and the bodies and deliver them back to the island headquarters. She even rattled off the co-ordinates of the island itself. Satisfied, Batman hauled them both back up to safety.  
  
  
  
Robin sat at the massive computer in near disbelief. The forum had been open to visitors, and then...nothing. It was as if the webpage never existed. He was lucky he had saved the message before it had all been wiped away:  
  
"They're evil!" the post had read, "They destroyed an entire city and we let them! Umbrella must be stopped before their creatures ruin the Earth! Dear God, somebody tell me you're out there!"  
  
Robin had received instructions to scour the internet for any trace of the Umbrella Corporation's dealings with the outside world. So he hacked around the internet for a while. It was really his own place, because there was just something in Bruce--  
  
Check that, Robin's mind blared, that's Batman you're talking about.  
  
--in Batman that didn't wander around there. Something about being too open, too accessible.   
  
But, it wasn't actually the company itself that interested him. Not at all. It was the company's internet scouring logs. Always on, searching for keywords such as Umbrella, Virus, Raccoon City, Zombie, among others.  
  
"Now why would a company that makes meds need to being deleting stuff like that?" he asked aloud, mostly to himself, but Alfred was there and heard the question quite clearly.  
  
"Perhaps to sweep a mess under the proverbial rug, Master Timothy?"  
  
"Yeah, that's what I think, too. But what kind of mess involves zombies and viruses? Who are these people?"  
  
On instinct- and because Umbrella's computers didn't even know he was there, Robin was that good- Robin traced the IP addresses of each deletion, and within seconds, had a long stream of addresses that were yet to be deleted. Robin opened one, only to find it scoured from the 'net. The next one was the same, and so he went further down the list, and began to open sites nearly faster than Umbrella could delete them. Finally, Robin's fingers began to work furiously, and had cached an entire website to a dummy server set up by himself. He'd just saved all the messages to the hard drive when the server crashed, the site deleted.  
  
"What sort of a handle is Airforceshooter8912? Oh, listen to this one, Alfred: Bikerbiyatch2112!"  
  
"Quite artistic, in their own little way," the butler said, laying down a roast beef sandwich and a glass of Root Beer for dinner. Absentmindedly, Robin took a bite of the sandwich, chewed, and swallowed.  
  
Inspiration struck him, and Robin typed again rapidly. Setting his own keyword search, he discovered that both names, in addition to others, were on every site being deleted, and was able to get ahead of the corporation. He could trace the names, but they didn't lead anywhere. But were they on a centralized service?  
  
In seconds Robin found a temporary provider they were using and quickly set up a chat room.  
  
Man...I hope this works.  
  
It didn't take long to respond.  
  
BigGuy50Cal: Hey, who is this?  
  
BirdBoyWonder: Nevermind that, what the heck are you up to?  
  
BigGuy50Cal: It's not what we're up to. Umbrella's at it again, but we don't know where!  
  
BirdBoyWonder: What? I don't follow.  
  
BigGuy50Cal: Don't you remember Raccoon City?  
  
The speed of the typing gave Robin the impression of an older man typing with just his two index fingers.  
  
BirdBoyWonder: Well, yeah, it was news two years ago. So what? There was no other way to contain the Anthrax airborne virus.  
  
BigGuy50Cal: It's a lie! Umbrella lobbied Congress to cover their mess.  
  
BirdBoyWonder: They can do that? Look, I think I know someone who might help you, but what are you talking about?  
  
BigGuy50Cal: Look, they've supposedly set up a man made lab to test and sell their germ weapons but we don't have the slightest clue as to where it's located.  
  
BirdBoyWonder: Umbrella's selling germ warfare? To who?  
  
BigGuy50Cal: That's the thing, we don't  
  
"Son of a--!" Robin cursed to himself. All traces of the chatroom log were erased. Not even the mainframe could find it on the hard drive. It didn't matter, though. Robin learned all he needed to know.  
  
At three in the morning, Batmobile glided into the cave, and seconds later Batman hopped out of the top. Behind him, a turnstile set into the floor turned the Batmobile around, setting up it for its eventual exit. Batman saw Robin hard at work on the computer, obviously getting nowhere.  
  
"Any progress?" Batman asked.   
  
"Somewhat," Robin replied, "This Umbrella business is a little weird. How'd you get mixed up in this?"  
  
Batman approached the mainframe, studying the long line of IP addresses, and the fact they were being deleted at an alarming rate.  
  
"A zombie ate the coroner late last night."  
  
"That jives with the information I'm getting. Would you believe that Umbrella's online computers are searching for zombie as a keyword? They're deleting all the sites that come up with it. That's what you're looking at. There's only a two minute delay between the message posts and their deletion. You believe that?"  
  
"I believe it," Batman said. "What about these people sending the messages?"  
  
"Don't know much. I was able to make contact briefly, but Umbrella's system deleted it in almost no time."  
  
"Anything useful?"  
  
Robin nodded. "Actually, yeah. The man- I guess it was a man- said that Umbrella was using a man made island to ship their germ warfare chemicals to wherever. He didn't know where. I asked Oracle if she could trace the screen name, but that was an hour ago. Any of this make sense?"  
  
"Completely. I can piece some of it together."  
  
"Oh? Do tell, Batman."  
  
"Three men escaped from this man made island with a vial of the chemical Umbrella was selling. Umbrella's private army showed up to clean house, and shot the vial on accident. The chemical killed the men, and later brought their corpses back to life."  
  
"That's a bit over the top," Robin called out to Batman, who had been speaking while walking to the changing room. Robin had sat up to follow, and heard what his mentor had said.  
  
"It's true. The statements and pictures are in that manilla folder in the top drawer, but I'd advise you to not look at the pictures." Batman had changed out of his suit, and was now Bruce Wayne- at least in body. His mind was still Batman, however.  
  
"Are they worse than the Joker's victims?"  
  
It was something Batman had filed away in his mind, that early in his career, Robin had faced down the Joker and beaten him, tricking the killer. Sometimes, he thought he didn't give the teen enough credit. And speaking of which--  
  
"Were you going to the Titan's Tower this weekend?" Batman suddenly asked.  
  
"I was going to, but if you need me here--"  
  
"Go. I'll have Oracle handle the information."  
  
"I heard that," came the voice from the computer. The screen went green, and the severe icon of Oracle showed up.  
  
"I've traced that address for you, Robin. Whoever it is knows how to cover his tracks, too, but not well enough. It came from 3122 9th Street in New York. Not too awful far away from where you are now."  
  
"An hour by car, less by jet," Robin said.   
  
Bruce shook his head. "I'll handle it. Who's coming to get you tomorrow?"  
  
"Cyborg," Robin said blandly, "He's coming to pick me up, quite literally. If anyone picked me up, I'd rather it be Starfire."  
  
Batman almost knew what he was talking about.  
  
"It's over for the night. Go home," Bruce said, about to follow his own advice.  
  
"Yeah, see you Monday night," Robin called back, and exited the dark cave.  
  
  
  
More than nearly anything in the world, he hated to wait. But he stood in the darkness, leaning against the tree and smoking a cigarette. It wouldn't be long now before the sun came up, and he figured he could at least wait that long. He puffed out a breath of smoke, and reached in his pockets for the small detonator. Grinning, he adjusted his sunglasses.  
  
They never knew he was here. He was good at being other people, when the situation required it. He didn't use complicated disguises or anything, but he knew "The System" well enough to manipulate it. A lab coat and a sullen yet somewhat optimistic attitude, and the receptionist thought you were a scientist. A drab sweater and a sudden aloofness, and the scientists though you were a new intern. An air of authority and a uniform and the security officers thought you were a ranking officer. Sometimes it was too easy, and it was during these times his vanity and pride begged him to slip up, to show them who he really was- just so he'd have the pleasure of tearing them apart like pieces of notebook paper.   
  
The small beeping of his watch told him it was time. Hidden in the brush was a small boat which would take him to a submarine that was offshore three miles, and then came the inevitable wait as he would sit by patiently until things settled down to take what he wanted. He pushed the button on the detonator. There was a five minute delay, and that was all the time he needed. He almost wished he could see it happen... 


End file.
